Men still have everything to say about their sexuality, and everything to write. For what they have said so far, for the most part, stems from the opposition activity/passivity, from the power relation between a fantasized obligatory virility meantto invade, to colonize, and the consequential phantasm of woman as a darkcontinent to penetrate and to pacify. (We know what pacify means in terms ofscotomizing the other and misrecognizing the self.) Conquering her, theyve madehaste to depart from her borders, to get out of sight, out of body. The way man hasof getting out of himself and into her whom he takes not for the other but for hisown, deprives him, he knows, of his own bodily territory. One can understandhow man, confusing himself with his penis and rushing in for the attack, mightfeel resentment and fear of being taken by the woman, of being lost in her,absorbed, or alone.

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About Hlne Cixous

Hlne Cixous was a contemporary French writer. Hélène Cixous is a French writer, playwright and literary critic. During her academic career, she was primarily associated with the Centre universitaire de Vincennes, which she co-founded in 1969 and where she created the first centre of women's studies at a European university. Read more on Wikipedia →

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